Thursday, June 07, 2018

"While privacy violations may lead some people to opt out of some platforms altogether, the dominance of social media seems unlikely to change at a macro level. “It’s not enough to say we can just stop using these platforms because we can just go back to the old way of things,” Das says. “I think we can’t, because they’ve totally changed how we socialize, at least in this country.”

Rather, if we continue to rely on social media to do much of the heavy lifting of keeping in touch, then privacy violations that damage trust are likely to have a subtler chilling effect. People won’t abandon social media en masse; they’ll just be a little quieter, a little more careful, a little less personal. And social media won’t be a very good tool for real, authentic connection."